Polaris: Queen of Mutants/Mistress of Magnetism Appreciation 2024

[jmc247]

This may or may not have been addressed before but I just noticed something that rubbed me the wrong way.

https://marvelstrikeforce.com/en/cha.../trait/XFactor
In the app game, Marvel Strike Force, where Lorna is playable, she's classified as an X-Factor character. Not an X-Man.

In X-Factor, she's listed alongside fellow "A-Listers" like Longshot, Multiple Man, and Shatterstar. Meanwhile characters like Sunspot, Fantomex, and X-23 are classified as X-Men even though X-Force is also a team in this game, but Lorna isn't, which seems very odd to me.

I remember some months back I posted about that recent X-Men board game where Lorna's team designation was X-Factor instead of X-Men so is this the new trend now to only classify her as a member of X-Factor?

If one went back 15 years Lorna was considered four things for games. #1 was a member of the X-Men. Next to that she was considered an Acolyte or member of the House of M. Last, but not least was as a member of X-Factor.

For Marvel promotionally at the moment treats Lorna as X-Factor, sometimes X-Men, and nothing else.





It would be even worse right now if Lorna didn't win the X-Men fan vote.

Magneto has it far better off as being promoted as a key member or the X-Men or the Brotherhood (or occasionally the Hellfire Club). It promotes the duality of the character and gives him two great identities in a way that X-Factor and sometimes X-Men doesn't do for Lorna.

I would like to see Lorna identified with an activist team again. The idea for instance of the House of M as a mutant activist family/team was a great seller for Lorna as a character, but until they fix their stupid retcon Marvel is not going to do much there as a selling point and they won't fix the retcon until the MCU decides to fix it.

[jmc247]

Now up to Krakoa era X-Factor for Lorna

[jmc247]

In terms of what went wrong I felt the creative staff looked at a bunch of contradictory Lorna appearances over the years and didn't get her personality so decided to kind of reboot the character. The story basically decided upon a DC New 52 level reboot of Lorna's character rather than building on what came before and that went badly.

Rockslides death became her replacement Genosha moment, Lorna and Magneto's relationship was radically re-envisioned and not in a good way at all. I would say Rockslides' death was the perfect example where it could have been a powerful moment if it was presented in the context of her history the way Magneto responding to the death of two mutants in God Loves Man Kills did for him. Instead, the story treated her as if she was a teen for the first-time seeing death with her own two eyes and not being able to handle it and that wasn't going to go down well at all.

In terms of Wanda while I am happy where the relationship ended up the story needed to tackle Decimation before getting there with both characters. It fluffed over the big stuff much like Scarlet Witch #3 fluffed over Magneto's death and robbed both of the real emotional beats.

[jmc247]

Duggan era Krakoa Polaris

[jmc247]

Lorna dresses of the Krakoa era.

[jmc247]

End of Duggan era

[jmc247]

Was the Duggan era with Lorna successful? Yes, but with an asterisk. What Duggan managed to get with Lorna was the big idea much lacking in other runs.

Emma works as the manipulator and Lorna works as a hammer. Genosha brought them to workable positions inside the X-Men mythos in its own way.

The asterisk for Lorna is that it wasn’t until the end that she felt truly part of the Krakoa story. Second to that she was lacking a good motivation until the attack on the gala mainly due to the erasure of an important part of her history. The overuse of the coffee pun undermined the story as well.

[whitecrown]

If one went back 15 years Lorna was considered four things for games. #1 was a member of the X-Men. Next to that she was considered an Acolyte or member of the House of M. Last, but not least was as a member of X-Factor.

For Marvel promotionally at the moment treats Lorna as X-Factor, sometimes X-Men, and nothing else.





It would be even worse right now if Lorna didn't win the X-Men fan vote.

Magneto has it far better off as being promoted as a key member or the X-Men or the Brotherhood (or occasionally the Hellfire Club). It promotes the duality of the character and gives him two great identities in a way that X-Factor and sometimes X-Men doesn't do for Lorna.

I would like to see Lorna identified with an activist team again. The idea for instance of the House of M as a mutant activist family/team was a great seller for Lorna as a character, but until they fix their stupid retcon Marvel is not going to do much there as a selling point and they won't fix the retcon until the MCU decides to fix it.

That's the card from the board game. I remember that shocked me because she's literally in what was then her current X-Men uniform but they still had the gall to label her an X-Factor character.

The Marvel United game I think was mostly themed on the X-Men's 90s looks so that didn't bother me so much, but it's all the media set in the present-day which still mark her as X-Factor first and primarily that seems so jarring.

And weren't there reports that Marvel tried to claim that Lorna winning the fan vote was rigged? That they tried to change or repudiate the results at first?

[salarta]

This may or may not have been addressed before but I just noticed something that rubbed me the wrong way.

https://marvelstrikeforce.com/en/cha.../trait/XFactor
In the app game, Marvel Strike Force, where Lorna is playable, she's classified as an X-Factor character. Not an X-Man.

In X-Factor, she's listed alongside fellow "A-Listers" like Longshot, Multiple Man, and Shatterstar. Meanwhile characters like Sunspot, Fantomex, and X-23 are classified as X-Men even though X-Force is also a team in this game, but Lorna isn't, which seems very odd to me.

I remember some months back I posted about that recent X-Men board game where Lorna's team designation was X-Factor instead of X-Men so is this the new trend now to only classify her as a member of X-Factor?

Yeah, this is one of many cases that ultimately led to me being so deeply opposed to Lorna being on any team named X-Factor now, or any "retrospective" stuff meant to emphasize it with her.

Since the early 2010s, she was put on 3 different teams named X-Factor. The second one was supposedly meant to be her leading the team, but White undermined it hard so Gambit ended up being treated more like the leader until around issue 7. The third one just treated her like a rando team member meant to support the others. All throughout, everything else about Lorna was treated like it didn't exist and never happened. Wasn't recognized as an important X-woman on that variant cover at the start of the Krakoa "era." Wasn't part of the all-female X-Men team. No recognition at all that she's existed since 1968, was the second woman to join the X-Men, had dynamics and relationships with the O5 before the vast majority of characters that exist now, had launched Krakoa into space in Giant-Size X-Men, none of that. Worst case of all being how they completely ignore her history with Genosha while letting all other characters talk about and grapple with it, including the atrocious move of her showing up on Genosha to help Kitty Pryde's plan but acting like she had no connection to it and instead complaining about lack of coffee.

Then you add in some games acting like she's only relevant to X-Factor and not the broader X-Men franchise, and it became very clear to me: association with X-Factor is toxic for her.

It results in acting like she's defined by a team she was on 30 years ago, like she has absolutely nothing outside that association and isn't capable of anything meaningful in the modern day. They don't pull this treatment on Havok; they define him as an X-Men franchise character and spent from 2011/2012 to today not forcing him onto X-Factor teams.

I very much think anyone trying to push X-Factor on Lorna in the present day, whether in the comics themselves or through adaptations like X-Men 97, is at best very naive. At worst, recognizing how bad it is for the character and deliberately trying to keep her down. But the most likely situation is between the two, where they put an absurd amount of focus on their own nostalgia and don't care at all about the character.

And weren't there reports that Marvel tried to claim that Lorna winning the fan vote was rigged? That they tried to change or repudiate the results at first?

Some fans of 2020s X-Factor, that were fans of how Lorna could be exploited for the book and other characters on it but not of Lorna herself, tried to claim it was rigged. Marvel and the X-Men office themselves did not, which is one slight kudos I can give to them. It would've been very easy for them to lie about the vote; it's not like we were able to see the results ourselves or anything. That said, Jordan White was (and I'm sure still is) very biased against Lorna, so he tried to explain away her winning the vote as only happening because Lorna has a lot of Gifted fans - both because it's a TV show depiction (as if Banshee didn't have the First Class movie in his corner) and under the claim that Gifted fans saw it as a referendum on Gifted.

[whitecrown]

Yeah, this is one of many cases that ultimately led to me being so deeply opposed to Lorna being on any team named X-Factor now, or any "retrospective" stuff meant to emphasize it with her.

Since the early 2010s, she was put on 3 different teams named X-Factor. The second one was supposedly meant to be her leading the team, but White undermined it hard so Gambit ended up being treated more like the leader until around issue 7. The third one just treated her like a rando team member meant to support the others. All throughout, everything else about Lorna was treated like it didn't exist and never happened. Wasn't recognized as an important X-woman on that variant cover at the start of the Krakoa "era." Wasn't part of the all-female X-Men team. No recognition at all that she's existed since 1968, was the second woman to join the X-Men, had dynamics and relationships with the O5 before the vast majority of characters that exist now, had launched Krakoa into space in Giant-Size X-Men, none of that. Worst case of all being how they completely ignore her history with Genosha while letting all other characters talk about and grapple with it, including the atrocious move of her showing up on Genosha to help Kitty Pryde's plan but acting like she had no connection to it and instead complaining about lack of coffee.

Then you add in some games acting like she's only relevant to X-Factor and not the broader X-Men franchise, and it became very clear to me: association with X-Factor is toxic for her.

It results in acting like she's defined by a team she was on 30 years ago, like she has absolutely nothing outside that association and isn't capable of anything meaningful in the modern day. They don't pull this treatment on Havok; they define him as an X-Men franchise character and spent from 2011/2012 to today not forcing him onto X-Factor teams.

I very much think anyone trying to push X-Factor on Lorna in the present day, whether in the comics themselves or through adaptations like X-Men 97, is at best very naive. At worst, recognizing how bad it is for the character and deliberately trying to keep her down. But the most likely situation is between the two, where they put an absurd amount of focus on their own nostalgia and don't care at all about the character.



Some fans of 2020s X-Factor, that were fans of how Lorna could be exploited for the book and other characters on it but not of Lorna herself, tried to claim it was rigged. Marvel and the X-Men office themselves did not, which is one slight kudos I can give to them. It would've been very easy for them to lie about the vote; it's not like we were able to see the results ourselves or anything. That said, Jordan White was (and I'm sure still is) very biased against Lorna, so he tried to explain away her winning the vote as only happening because Lorna has a lot of Gifted fans - both because it's a TV show depiction (as if Banshee didn't have the First Class movie in his corner) and under the claim that Gifted fans saw it as a referendum on Gifted.

It didn't even dawn on me that since her return from space, she's been part of X-Factor three separate times. And really only part of the X-Men once thanks to the fan vote. Maybe twice if you consider the Disassembled period even though she wasn't heavily promoted as part of the main cast. I know fans were hoping that Gambit and Lorna would be allowed a friendship or relationship, especially after WATXM, but that really never came to be. At this point, it's easier and shorter to compile a list of when Lorna wasn't wronged, compared to all the instances she's been snubbed because pretty much from the moment Magneto was revealed to be lying about her parentage, Lorna got the short end of the stick. In fact, she's a thousand miles away from the stick.

I think about how before New Mutants was created and when Byrne first left UXM, his plan was to write a spinoff X-Men book which would feature the rest of the O5 plus Lorna and Alex and station them on the West Coast. If that had actually occurred, I do wonder how different Lorna's trajectory would have been. I feel like she wouldn't be a peripheral character then but a main one. Even in Claremont's run, the only time Lorna gets any respect is when Byrne was on board. We got to see Lorna and Jean's friendship which pretty much was never referenced again by Claremont, Lorna was on the cover for UXM 128 in full costume and action pose when even Alex wasn't, and she was allowed to participate in the battle in the Proteus Saga. No brainwashing or being supplanted by Alex as usual.

And you're right that Alex has never been defined by X-Factor the way Lorna was. Even though their history on X-Factor stays the same until Marvel NOW! when Alex got catapulted to A-List status with Uncanny Avengers as the face of the book and team leader. The lack of Alex and Wanda ever even mentioning Lorna always seemed odd to me especially as this was pre-retcon. Havok isn't in Marvel Strike Force yet but if he's ever added, I'm dying to see if he gets the X-Men label or X-Factor label.

I did hear about some Lorna fans on Twitter who were upset that people wanted her on the main X-Men team. How she would have an easier chance to shine in X-Factor as a lead than in the flagship book where she'd be sidelined by A-Listers. Honestly, I think just having Lorna constantly picturized with A-Listers like Scott and Jean is better to raise her profile than placing her in a B-list book with fellow B-listers and C-listers. So I don't get that argument and I didn't realize that these same Lorna fans were the ones claiming the vote was rigged. And Jordan White's argument is so stupid because even if Lorna is getting votes because people liked her in The Gifted, shouldn't that be an indication that she's popular and fans want to see more of her? That she's actually developing new fans who wouldn't normally be exposed to her otherwise? The X-Men have been so stagnant since the 21st century that revamping a pre-existing character (à la Magik) to attain new heights would probably be a better idea compared to all the countless new characters they've created since then who never took off (looking at Armor and Pixie). X-23 is the only new character who really took off so I don't know why Marvel didn't decide that they should capitalize on Lorna's newfound popularity from The Gifted, instead of trying to almost apologize for it like it's an embarrassment.

[Hakka84]

[pops in]

I was mumbling about Giant-Size just yesterday, mostly on how much powered-up nowadays are mutants.
Well, put it this way: in 2020, not only there would be no need for a joint-move from the most powerful X-Men of Giant-Size, but Lorna would be able to launch Krakoa into space will nodding off and without even spilling her coffee. She could turn up wearing a pajama and then return to bed without even properly waking up. :P

Sorry. Just wanted to offer a funny image for a second-lasting snicker.

Returning serious for a minute.
I want a story/title with her and the O5, or some of them, to further develop their relationship. I'll die on this hill.
We really got too little in canon, and most was her/Bobby.
I hear that some of you weren't fans of Polaris's portrayal in Hidden Years, so I won't advocate for that series (which I loved). But if I had to choose the members of the O5 (and I couldn't get the whole team) I would leave out Bobby, I want to see more of her with the other 4.
I admit I'd be curious to see her and Warren. I don't think they ever worked together, and even in original X-Men and Hidden Years they barely interacted. I think they could make for a nice dynamic, especially as how different they approach to issues and their background (Warren as white-rich-man, Lorna as what amounts to be a princess of the mutant-dom).

[/shyly pops out]

[GoingGreen]

I can't wait until Leah Williams' Krakoan X-Factor fades into the same oblivion as All New X-Factor. It was an embarrassingly bad portrayal of Polaris by an amateur writer who chose not to do her research. It literally hurts to see that scene between Polaris and Magneto being shared, when she implies herself that she has no personality and has no idea who she is. Williams showed her ass there. And further - she did nothing but show how little she valued Polaris in general, over and over again. Even during Trial of Magneto... Polaris' role was an embarrassing shell, and yet another inconsistency of portrayal by this amateur writer.

I beg you all to stop sharing screenshots from that series.

[jmc247]

I can't wait until Leah Williams' Krakoan X-Factor fades into the same oblivion as All New X-Factor. It was an embarrassingly bad portrayal of Polaris by an amateur writer who chose not to do her research. It literally hurts to see that scene between Polaris and Magneto being shared, when she implies herself that she has no personality and has no idea who she is. Williams showed her ass there. And further - she did nothing but show how little she valued Polaris in general, over and over again. Even during Trial of Magneto... Polaris' role was an embarrassing shell, and yet another inconsistency of portrayal by this amateur writer.

I beg you all to stop sharing screenshots from that series.

That was my last the good, the bad, and the ugly retrospective on the Krakoa era for Lorna.

Sadly, the character is going to have to continue to deal with fallout from that run in various forms. Trial of Magneto and some of the earlier stuff did a lot of damage to Lorna and Magneto's relationship. I was talking to some fans on another board who only know their 616 relationship at all from Trial of Magneto and therefore have a very warped impression of their relationship. That damage will linger in the background until they have some real interaction under a writer who understand them in a well read crossover.

Sales of Trial of Magneto (unlike X-Factor) were high mainly due to demand for Wanda family stories after Wandavision. That TV show super charged sales of House of M trades globally and for about two years House of M was a top 20 selling graphic novel in the world. That is why we are getting another HoM omni in two months. Most movies or TV shows don't boost the sales much of comics. Wandavision was different perhaps due to everyone locked in during COVID leading to MCU casuals wanting to read House of M to figure out what it is about.

[GoingGreen]

That was my last the good, the bad, and the ugly retrospective on the Krakoa era for Lorna.

Sadly, the character is going to have to continue to deal with fallout from that run in various forms. Trial of Magneto and some of the earlier stuff did a lot of damage to Lorna and Magneto's relationship. I was talking to some fans on another board who only know their relationship at all from Trial of Magneto and therefore have a very warped impression of their relationship. That will continue until they have some real interaction under a writer who understand them.

Here's the thing. I am okay with a wild reinterpretation of their relationship (as long as it's not them going out for ice cream - my God, never again...). Honestly, it really doesn't bother me to have Polaris call him father or dad or whatever. And the reason being... if you trace Polaris' appearance back to her beginning, and most/all of her AUs... Polaris clearly WANTS to be Magneto's daughter. Or rather, and more importantly... (I'm speaking as someone who was abandoned by a father here)... wants Magneto to accept her as his daughter.

THIS is the allegory I have been dying to see here. Not just "Here's all this crazy Super-Comic History that makes everything complicated because Robots and psychometry with polaroids." No. I really really want to see the abandonment issues. While, at the same time, defining her love for the parents who raised her like their own! I am so embarrassed they still have not addressed the Danes. They now act like Polaris and Magneto have always been close, but Lorna was raised her entire life by the Danes! 1200 miles away from San Francisco. In, what my head canon deems, a ranch in Boulder, Colorado, where she was a horse girl and has many family dogs, and her "mother" is Eloise Dane, the sister to Arnold, and her her "father" is Robert Dane, a pilot who got swept up in all this.

And while we're talking about big dreaming:

• Just make Suzanna a mutant, as implied, who passes her gene on. And just like Polaris inherited Magneto's electromagnetism, she also inherited (as a secondary mutation) Suzanna's empathic-bomb abilities
• Just make Zala her twin, who wasn't a mutant, and they threw into the Savage Land. Give Zala a proper reason to have become the monster she became. And admit she's also Magneto's (born-human) daughter.

Anyway...

[jmc247]

I did hear about some Lorna fans on Twitter who were upset that people wanted her on the main X-Men team. How she would have an easier chance to shine in X-Factor as a lead than in the flagship book where she'd be sidelined by A-Listers. Honestly, I think just having Lorna constantly picturized with A-Listers like Scott and Jean is better to raise her profile than placing her in a B-list book with fellow B-listers and C-listers.

X-23 is the only new character who really took off so I don't know why Marvel didn't decide that they should capitalize on Lorna's newfound popularity from The Gifted, instead of trying to almost apologize for it like it's an embarrassment.

Even in Claremont's run, the only time Lorna gets any respect is when Byrne was on board. We got to see Lorna and Jean's friendship which pretty much was never referenced again by Claremont, Lorna was on the cover for UXM 128 in full costume and action pose when even Alex wasn't, and she was allowed to participate in the battle in the Proteus Saga. No brainwashing or being supplanted by Alex as usual.

And you're right that Alex has never been defined by X-Factor the way Lorna was. Even though their history on X-Factor stays the same until Marvel NOW! when Alex got catapulted to A-List status with Uncanny Avengers as the face of the book and team leader. The lack of Alex and Wanda ever even mentioning Lorna always seemed odd to me especially as this was pre-retcon.

Byrne was a fan of the 60s team and storytelling... so much so he later wrote an ongoing about it. Claremont wanted the 60s team other than the characters he adopted to his team as regulars to be consigned to the dust bin of comic history.

In terms of Lorna's parentage, it was respected through about 2006. Mike Marts backed up the Austen/Morrison change in Lorna's parentage. But, a lot of people at Marvel including current X-office editor Tom Brevoort were not fans at the time of it. That was why after Marts left Lorna's parentage basically became something that existed mainly AU or occasionally referenced on the book she was on. Never on other x-books, much less the Avengers titles.

The last time 616 Wanda, Pietro, and Lorna were together on the same comic (and alive) was Austen's Uncanny X-Men 443 in 2004 when they went to Genosha together. Its been that long.

The truncated family only started breaking down after Wandavision turned House of M into a non-comic fan must read title and casual Wanda MCU fans became fans of the relationship. It helped that Lorna's profile due to The Gifted and Duggan's X-Men grew. Fall of the House of X was the first time Lorna mattered to an x-line crossover ever. It would have never happened if the head writer of the line didn't successfully write her in his ongoing title.